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Colorado father-son team is 3D printing a Lamborghini — for $20K

A Colorado physicist is building a 3D-printed Lamborghini with his son. lasersterling/YouTube

Brand-new Lamborghinis start at the approximate base price of $450,000 — but one father-son duo is getting one for just $20,000 thanks to a 3D printer.

Colorado physicist Sterling Backus’ son got the idea to build the car after he drove a Lamborghini Aventador in the Xbox car-racing game Forza, Auto Blog reports.

From that point on, the two had their sights set on building a car, and with Backus’ career focus on lasers, it seemed absolutely possible.

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With a set budget of $20,000, they set to work on their challenge.

Backus told the blog that he spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos of how to 3D print properly.

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He found panel layouts for the car on GrabCAD — an online community where designers and engineers can share models — modified them as required, and will be installing a Corvette engine.

So far, the incredible project has taken about 20 months and is set to hit the road by next spring.

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Though Backus has what seems to be a helpful background for this particular venture, he says that what’s been most helpful is his past interest in cars.

“[My career] really hasn’t helped an enormous amount,” he told CBS Denver. “What’s really helped is when I was a kid, I was a gearhead.”
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He explained that they were going to use standard car-building methods, like steel and body panels, but went with 3D printing instead.

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Speaking to Denver broadcast station, Xander Backus, 11, said the project is the perfect unification of many different elements.

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“You may hate math, you may not like science, you may not like language arts, you may not even like art, but it all comes together with this one project,” he said.

While Xander seems excited to have his dream car for himself one day, the duo want the end product to be educational, too.

Per the project’s Facebook page, they hope to take the car around to local schools to teach kids about the importance of getting into science.

meaghan.wray@globalnews.ca

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